of his sexual orientation "unwarranted". In Moskos's words: "In simple terms, Senior Chief McVeigh did not 'tell' in a manner contemplated under the policy – he sent an anonymous e-mail which did not list his surname or his Navy connection". Opinion On January 26, 1998, U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin granted McVeigh a preliminary injunction barring the Navy from discharging him. He wrote that the central issue was whether the Navy complied with its own Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy and, by extension, "whether there is really a place for gay officers in the military under the new policy". Sporkin sometimes referred to DADT by its longer name – "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue" – as he questioned the Navy's pursuit of information about McVeigh. He wrote: Sporkin quoted DADT guidelines that specified that "creditable information" from a "reliable person" about sexual orientation was required to prompt an investigation. Instead, he wrote: Sporkin also called it a "search and 'outing' mission". He noted that "cyberspace ... invites fantasy and affords anonymity", an environment at odds with the regulatory requirement that the subject of an investigation show "a likelihood actually to carry out homosexual acts". He also found that the Navy's investigation had "likely violated" the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Though the government had argued that the statute penalized the party that disclosed information, in this case AOL, and not the party requesting information, he wrote: To the government's argument that McVeigh had acknowledged owning the AOL account, Sporkin wrote: Sporkin concluded with his view of the significance of the DADT policy: In conclusion, the court granted McVeigh the preliminary injunction and his discharge was overturned as an "immediate and irreparable injury" to McVeigh's career and reputation. Settlement and impact Clarence Page, writing in the Chicago Tribune, said that the case was "a defining test of the right to privacy in cyberspace and in the military. The military flunked. So did a major on-line service." Arthur Leonard of New York Law School commented: "Every one of these cases that comes to the public's attention reinforces the absurdity of the [DADT] policy, and that can only help us in the long run. It's just a shame some people are turned into martyrs, but it looks as if in this case McVeigh won't be a martyr." The parties began negotiating McVeigh's retirement with full benefits. A Defense Department